Work Project
StayWell Nutrición
Company introduccion
Background
The problems at hand
From clients
People don’t know how or where to get the right nutrition advice. Professional and reliable consulting to achieve health goals is limited to local, in-person sessions, missing on quality services that could be offered elsewhere.
People don’t know how or where to find the right information about nutrition. They always wonder if Google results are actually proven and true. So, instead, they try to seek professional and reliable advice to achieve their health goals but most offerings are in-person sessions which limits people to their local offerings, missing on quality services that could be offered elsewhere. The few online offerings available involve a unconvenient multi-process which requires various platfoms for scheduling, payment, communication, and video. People are looking fo an easier way to research and connect.
Ghosting
Clients would more than often skip sessions for "personal reasons". Which, after analysing the pattern from various clients' behaviours, it was discovered that most of these cases were related to the actual commitment to show up in person at the office.
Excuses
Related to the ghosting issue, clients would try to find any excuse to move the sessions to another day because they wouldn't "feel like going today". This, of course, would impact the schedule of the professional.
From professionals
Unproductive process of handling multiple platfoms for different needs. Maintaining the ecosystem is very time-consuming. Seeking for a simpler and easier way to manage their businesses in one place while gaining more exposure and achieving new growth levels.
Sharing the frustration with clients, professionals don’t find productive the process of handling multiple platfoms for different needs. Appointment booking tools, spreadsheets for client management, financial and payment platfoms, website building and maintenance, etc. Due to the nature of the non-tech-savvy demographic of professionals in the target region, it can be a heavy lift for solo-preneurs. Maintaining this system is very time-consuming. They wish there was a simpler and easier way to manage their businesses in one place where they could also gain more exposure and achieve new growth levels.
Technical problems & Costs
Relying on multiple platforms to run their businesses involves a higher cost that impacts revenue (even more so for solo-players), compromises time when in need of tech support, and increases the probabilities of human mistakes with data.
Popularity of diet & workout apps
New apps are impacting the professionals' growth. Clients are choosing the "convenient way" of achieving health goals by using them instead. But these apps are also impacting people's habits (for the worse) where there's not clear guidance on best practices and tracking resulting in a "bounce-back" (client going back to a bad state after a while).
Identified user segments
The life-improver
This specific user needs a more convenient way to attend sessions with a professional dietician for when the time doesn't work best for them to commute. Usually, exhaustion after a long day at work or looking after children are the main reasons for needing a better way
The professional
This specific user segment would want to centralize their operations by using the least amount of tools possible while providing a better service for their clients.
Trends discovered
The following apps started to appear on more people's phones trying to replace professional services. But after a while, they ended up abandoned or deleted without providing impactful results. Most of the time in this industry, people need somebody else to push them towards their health goals (in a good way of course).
Discovered main paint points
Self-commitment (and the lack of it)
Most of these apps require self-commitment with tracking and data entry but people almost never follow it, or they do it for the first few days and then start to forget (or decline) to log on their meals and activity to track their progress properly, which leads to no results at the end of the day.
No personalized counseling
These new platforms are meant to be "automated" tools that would not require the need of human assistance to use them. The problem is that the key information and best practices on how to do things are missing (or are at the minimum) and require a lot of the user effort to find what they need. Most of the time leading to abandonment.
Lack of options fo specific use cases
A pattern we found was that these apps are targeting the general public and provide the basics to weight loss. That's it. The professionals know that there are more use cases than weight loss such as sports nutrition or pediatric nutrition, for instance, which are nowhere to be found.
Relies on habit-building and self-control
Related to the self-commitment issue, in order to be able to get real results by using these new platforms, the user is required to build new habits and stick to them to see real progress. Habit-building is a big effort phycologically, specially for this user segment, which is not taken in consideration very well in these apps' user experience. it's already assumed that the user will follow the instructions from day 1.
The Kick Off
After further discussion and consolidating the problem, we've moved on to define the key pieces of the requirements
The Clients' goal
To conveniently find and connect with professional nutritionists from anywhere.
The Professionals' goal
To centralize operations while providing the best service by leveraging communication technologies
How might we...
...provide a platfom that allows people to easily find the right professional to help them with their specific dieting needs while making their connection more seamless and instant by leveraging the latest communication technologies, and allow professionals to smoothly manage their business and clients in a centralized place efficiently?
Highlights of main user stories and JTBDs that needed to be covered
For the Clients
Epic
As a client, I want to easily find trusted and experienced professionals on my mobile device and be able to connect with them seamlessly from anywhere and everywhere so that I can achieve my health goals with personalized, guided, and real-time consulting without being region-limited or commute-dependant.
Break down of key task-based user stories
As a client, I want to be able to search and narrow down a list of experienced, specialized professionals so that I can quickly find the right one for my needs.
As a client, I want to see reviews from other clients and information about the professional so that I can make a good decision when choosing one that fits my needs
As a client, I want to know their availability and intuitively be able to book a session from my mobile phone so that I make sure I find a day and time that works for me and that I plan the upcoming session with anticipation.
As a client, I want to choose from various communication channels when having a session so that I have the flexibility to choose the best communication approach depending on my needs at that moment while still having a successful session.
For the Professionals
Epic
As a professional, I want to take in clients online from all regions and be able to manage and track them in one single, intuitive platform so that I can expand my reach and make my client management process more efficient for higher satisfaction and faster results.
Break down of key task-based user stories
As a professional, I want to see my upcoming weekly schedule so that I can plan my sessions accordingly.
As a professional, I want to access client relevant information so that I can track progress towards their goals and provide more personalized guidance.
As a professional, I want to take in online payments and access historic data so thatI keep my books in oder and trackable in one place.
As a professional, I want to keep track of my client base so that I know how much business I’m driving and adjust my strategy accordingly.
The principles defined to pull this off
Convenient platform
A mobile platform where users can search and sort professionals by specialization and experience and easily book and attend 1:1 online sessions that'll help to make progress on their health goals with professional guidance from the palm of their hands
Latest comms tech at the core
Provide communication tools such as video conferencing, chat, and progress tracking to keep a real-time, more personalized experience that'll benefit both ends, professionals and their clients alike.
All-in-one place
Intuitive and frustration-free features for professionals such as session management and history, scheduling, payment processing and client data tracking for better management of their overall business needs
Shaping the solution for the Clients
With all the features and initial requirements mapped out, we started exploring how this platform would look like for users. For clients, we broke down the main experience into four (4) stages:
1. Onboarding:
Gathering of essential information for a personalized home screen. Form-like interaction.
2. Search and filtering:
Ability to see recommendations based on data provided and search functionality by experience and specialty.
3. Booking (and pre-session):
Ability to see the professional's information, service offerings, availability. Session scheduling and payment submission. Notifications and information about upcoming sessions.
4. Sessions:
Direct communication with the professional through one (1) of the three (3) channels available: Video, Voice, and Chat.
Making sure Professionals have an easy time
As for the nutritionists and dieticians experts, we identified five (5) key areas that'd make their life easier:
1. Quick overview of the operations:
Gathering of essential information for a personalized home screen. Form-like interaction.
2. Bookings and client monitoring and management:
Ability to see recommendations based on data provided and search functionality by experience and specialty.
3. Services and transactions management:
Ability to see the professional's information, service offerings, availability. Session scheduling and payment submission. Notifications and information about upcoming sessions.
4. Profile creation and maintenance:
Direct communication with the professional through one (1) of the three (3) channels available: Video, Voice, and Chat.
5. The sessions themselves:
Ability to see the professional's information, service offerings, availability. Session scheduling and payment submission. Notifications and information about upcoming sessions.
The outcome after the explorations
We ended up with an initial design that assist both, the Clients' and the Professionals' needs in a rather simple but yet convenient platform.
Mobile app - For clients
Clients would enter key information while creating an account that would create a personalized homepage where tailored recommendations become the main highlight of the experience to ease the process of finding the right expert.
Clients would also have at their disposal a place where they could seek for nutrition assistance in a way they're familiar with. By utilizing standard patterns for searching and filtering, in addition to the personalized recommendations based on unique profiles, Clients would have an easy time finding what they're looking for.
Mobile interactions example
Web platform - For professionals
Professionals would have access to a complete dashboard where probably would be the only place they'll need to be on a daily basis. With all essential information about their operations at a glance, nutritionists and dieticians would love to wake up on a Monday and start working right away without headaches.
If Professionals were in need of more details about their sessions, they would have at their disposal a page where they could see or filter all the upcoming and completed sessions history for a better monitoring and understanding of their daily operations.
Professionals would also have access to a database of Clients to better track their individual activity and nutrition-related progress. By understanding their client base better, they could offer better services which would lead to higher loyalty and recommendations.
Related to the previous page, Professionals would have access to detailed Client information with key information to run their sessions smoothly and leave their Clients with a happy smile after seeing positive progress at the end of the day.
Professionals would be able to create and edit as many services as they want to offer for high performance operations.
The Professional profile is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. So, they would have access to a dedicated page to edit their information, profile image, and details about their knowledge and experience. In addition to this, reviews monitoring and engagement would help with maintaining a great public profile.
The Professionals would have a specific desktop-focused interface for their sessions where they can view the key Client information and leave notes as they go. All this would be saved in the Client's session profile for later access, when needed. This would ease Client progress tracking for future sessions.
Desktop interactions example
Some setbacks along the way
The platform was heading in the right direction and we (and prospects) were very happy with the current results but, unfortunately, this project couldn't be developed and shipped as expected due to a financial crisis in Argentina. It was decided to put the project on stand-by until further notice, when the investment could be more stable and predictable.
We see potential with this platform based on feedback from a few prospects from both ends which confirms the benefits we can bring to them, so we hope this project can be resurrected in the future and tested thoroughly so it can be shipped to the people who really need this.
If you're curious about the financial crisis, you can read about it here and here
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